


Relentless Splinters I Recall

by DreamerInSilico



Series: Splinters [2]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Chanter!Watcher, F/F, Plotty, and also journal entries from certain characters, and writing poetry, author spent way too much time dreaming up past lives, expect much snark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Acantha never wanted to change the world, until she remembered.  And then, she did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Before me plays the endless film;_   
>  _Relentless splinters I recall,_   
>  _Each living thing breathes life,_   
>  _Only sentiment remains. -- "Arena," VNV Nation_
> 
>  
> 
> This is meant to be a longfic, spanning the timeframe of the game (and beyond), but not a direct novelization. The game's too damn big for that, and I have trouble sticking to that fic style anyway. Instead, I'll be trying a mixed format that hopefully adequately represents the big picture while spending the most time on character interaction and development beyond what's available in the game dialogue. 
> 
> Spoilers will abound, but I'll put specific warnings on chapters as appropriate, because I'd really like to be able to start to share this amazing game with people who haven't necessarily finished (or even started) it yet. It deserves a larger creator fandom than it currently has. 
> 
> There will be at least two auxiliary pairings in this fic, but I'm not going to announce them just yet. I may also write some separate vignettes to cover parts of one of them that don't really fit into the narrative of this big one.

The soul-storm blew around and _through_ Acantha, yet it did not sweep her away with it.

There was wind, but the howling it made seemed to have little to do with the passage of air, and the tugging of it upon her bedraggled braids was nothing beside the way it seemed to pull at her _essence_ \- yet that essence was too firmly, stubbornly anchored to depart from her body.

A mercy, one might think, though she would not later name it so.

Through that strange second-sight, she saw more things all at once than most mortals must bear in a lifetime. Buffeted by sound and light and alien thoughts, Acantha reeled, falling to her knees and pressing her palms to her eyes, then her ears, then her eyes again in attempt to shut out the visual and auditory noise, to no avail. There was no escape, only endurance.

Her eyes were streaming when she finally dared open them again, and she was struck by a momentary flash of loss so keen it surpassed even the moment when she had learned that the twins had died in the avalanche, years previously. Try as she might, though, she could not access the source of that feeling; it lingered like the worst kind of nightmare - one only half-remembered, leaving all of the emotion behind but nothing concrete to reason away.

The forested ruins were far too quiet around her as she slowly collected her bearings, squinting in the sunlight that had seemed welcoming only moments (or was it hours?) before, when she and her companions had finally stumbled out of the Engwithan ruin and back into the nominal world of the living. Calisca and Heoden were sprawled, senseless, to either side of her, and Acantha feared the worst even before she hesitantly checked their pulses.

Nothing.

The bîaŵac had taken them with it as it passed, leaving Acantha alone. Again.

She sat back on her haunches numbly, eyes cast forward and hands on her knees, muttering a soft, simple eulogy in Glamfell - _May the Beast of Winter fail to mark your journey._ A curse rather than a blessing, by no few of her people’s standards, but Rymrgand’s bleak doctrine had never found welcome in her own clan.

Again, time seemed to stretch and contract, but this time it was only a far more familiar sense of listless stasis, and she finally rose some minutes later, when her knees began to ache.

_Focus._

Exhausted, wrung-out, and still fighting the occasional wave of nausea from illness - thank any power who might give a damn that she had had the waterskin with her when they had fled into the ruins, for she quite believed the caravan master’s warning that dehydration would prove swiftly fatal - she seemed safe enough for the present, but she could not afford to settle down to rest for any great length of time. Unless one counted the handful of springberries, which Acantha didn’t, she had no food, little water left, and had only a crude idea of where she was. And of even more immediate concern, the longer she stood out in the afternoon sun, the more she was going to suffer for the loss of her jar of sun-salve, which remained tucked in her small bundle of supplies at the caravan, now lost to her by virtue of the rockfall that had driven her tiny party of survivors to seek another exit to the ruins.

Behind her, the ruins offered shelter, but little safety. Ahead, the… _thing_ that seemed to have created the second bîaŵac loomed, now dormant, but ominous all the same. And somewhere beyond all this - at minimum two days’ walk, by her best estimation, assuming she guessed the direction aright - lay the town of Gilded Vale and her theoretical salvation. (Acantha had her doubts about that last part, but at the very least, she’d be able to buy a meal and a night in an inn.)

She had to get moving, whatever else she did. Swallowing bile, she crouched once more beside the corpses of her short-lived acquaintances and took what little coin they had carried. There were few other supplies worth salvaging - Calisca had flint and steel, and Heodan’s dagger replaced the one Acantha had thrown to save him, however briefly, from the clutches of the Glanfathan leader - but they were better than nothing. A trained loresinger’s instincts urged her to lay them out properly, on a rock shelf somewhere, or build a pyre for them, but fatigue caused her to deny that compulsion, if with difficulty. It would be good fortune if she could reach Gilded Vale alive as it was, let alone after expending such energy on those who had already returned to the Wheel.

Acantha compromised by straightening their sprawled forms and folding fast-cooling hands upon their chests in repose. It wasn’t _right_ , but any native of the White had to be able to place survival over preference or ritual - even if the latter was one of their primary functions within their clan, as it had been for her.

The great machine - presumably Engwithan in origin, by its stylistic similarity to the nearby ruins - both attracted Acantha’s interest and utterly repelled her. The ash-pillars that had once been people (willing sacrifices, to all appearances - a thing she’d _never_ understood) stood as mute yet profoundly stark testament to the thing’s malice. She had meant to examine the machine in detail, but as she got closer, an almost sub-auditory hum (or was it a whine? It seemed to be on both the absolute edges of her hearing range at once) grew more and more obtrusive, like an itch in her skull, and she could not bring herself to close the last few spans of the distance.

Instead, jaw clenched, she sought out the retreating tracks of the sole man who had walked away from whatever rite had raised the bîaŵac. It would be as good a starting point as any for getting her back to something like civilization.

It did not escape her that he, too, had survived the gale, for no corpse, nor pillar of ash marked the place of his end.

……

Not two, but three days later, sunburned, largely deprived of sleep, though at least recently well-fed thanks to a harrowing encounter with a trio of minimally-competent brigands and, more importantly, the supplies they no longer had any use for, Acantha arrived in Gilded Vale, and very nearly turned on her heel to retreat into the wilderness once more.

A near-tangible pall hung over the town, which was little surprise given that the square was dominated by an enormous tree whose limbs bore no leaves, but a great many swinging corpses. (“Seventeen and a half,” a yellow-bearded meadowfolk had informed her dryly, when he’d noticed her staring. “Could be eighteen, depending on how you count the dwarf woman.” The man had been so nonchalant about the whole thing, she had retreated from him rather quickly.) Her brief interview with a rather hostile guard-captain was somehow less disturbing than the on-looker’s words, as it at least seemed of a piece with the overall mood of the place. It left her with more questions than answers, but one of those answers was the important one - she was leaving Gilded Vale as soon as it was practical to do so. She had heard about the so-called Saint’s War before, but the “hollowborn plague” was new to her, and while she had no intention of bearing children in the foreseeable future, it also seemed to be the source of the madness that had hung the great tree with bodies.

Acantha drew her travel-stained cloak more closely around her and made for the inn, the horror of the hanging tree following her, but at a distance, as if viewed through a pane of glass. She was too tired, particularly with the prospect of a safe bed nearby, to even begin to work through her full reaction to the present situation, not to mention the last three days of her anxious, solitary flight from the ruins.

She desperately hoped that the strange dreams that had plagued her during what little sleep she had snatched on the journey would be banished by the comforts of proper shelter, a hot meal, and a bath. Given all that, the very _last_ thing she wanted to deal with on her way to that long-awaited succor was an altercation just outside the door of the inn, but the world had shown how little interest it had in what she wanted, of late, and on a certain level, Acantha found herself faintly, inappropriately amused.

A scholarly-looking wood elf in Aedyran-style clothing stood faced-off against a small knot of angry townsfolk, who seemed no small bit intoxicated and had apparently taken offense to something the Aedyran had said.

Acantha had difficulty tracking the exclamation that burst from the man in response to more goading from one of the townsmen, but she caught “touch” and “sister,” and while she had no idea what a “coxfither” was, it certainly held the ring of something inflammatory. However, all she especially cared about at the moment was the sense that unnecessary violence was about to take place, and more importantly, it was about to take place between her and a bed, and her patience was already stretched to the breaking point.

Decision made, she slung her bow down into a ready grip and strung it in one practiced motion, knocking one of her carefully-hoarded arrows before stepping between the Aedyran and the townsfolk. “Enough death in this town already, goodfolk,” she observed in her clipped, Glamfell-by-way-of-Old-Vailia-accented Aedyran. “Ill-chosen words are worth more of it? Perhaps yours, this time?” She swept a meaningful glance over their decided lack of proper weapons (there seemed to be a belt knife or two among them, but that was likely all) before staring the nearest one directly in the face, willing her exhaustion into hiding behind the icy steel of her eyes.

“Bugger you, too, ghost-elf,” the burly farmer snarled, but he took a step back nonetheless. “Neither of you’d best be staying in town long.”

The tiniest, humorless smirk tilted Acantha’s lips. “On that, I quite agree.”

They stared at her several heartbeats longer, but when she didn’t flinch, the leader let out a snort of disgust and turned away. “You’re smarter than your pretty friend, then, lass.”

She lowered her bow and returned the arrow to her quiver when they had all dispersed, letting out a shaky breath as the strain of projecting _strength_ when it felt she had none hit her all at once.

But the man she’d interceded for was speaking. She opened her eyes and turned to face him, sluggishly. “...Repeat, if you please?”

Fine features, smooth in a way that glamfellen men often weren’t. Blue-black hair and murky, sun-on-seawater eyes. Finely-made but well-worn leather armor over sober blues and greys - her time in Old Vailia had taught her to recognize various levels of craftsmanship in northern clothing, and his said “once-wealthy.” Possibly noble. His accent was Imperial, so that seemed likely.

And he was talking and she had meant to be listening, but that was something of a lost cause.

“ - can’t thank you enough, please, let me - “

She interrupted him abruptly, shaking her head. “Thank me later. Now, I need sleep, more than I have ever needed anything.”

He looked taken-aback for a moment, but to his credit, only nodded, which turned into a slight bow. “Of course. Sleep soundly.”

Acantha nodded once, then shouldered through the door and into the inn.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alliance is formed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extensive prologue spoilers.

Sleep brought little comfort. Less, even, than she had taken from it in the wilderness before reaching Gilded Vale, for those dreams had not had the ring of present reality, so much as memory. This time, Acantha was left with the distinct impression that the dwarf woman’s sunken features and single word - _Watcher_ \- were direct communication rather than embroidered memory, and that was… disturbing.

She did not actually rise and dress until nearly the next evening, and even then, did so feeling as though she suffered the after-effects of a night of far too much drinking, despite not having had even so much as a swallow of small beer in the last five days, at least. Her fine, silver-white hair, she had taken the time to untangle before finally lying down to take her rest - a silly thing to feel was necessary, perhaps, but to her it had always been so. Few things were as unpleasant as waking up to a dry mouth and a rodent’s-nest head: if she did not have to, she was not going to. And so she stood before the cloudy mirror in her room and took stock of herself, weary-eyed and loose-haired.

The nausea that had plagued her periodically throughout the final days of her journey seemed to have abated, replaced by the simpler, cleaner feeling of hunger. A rip in her shirt wanted mending, and for that matter, a replacement or two. Were it not so frowned-upon, she might have simply gone down to the common room in trousers and breast-band, as even the early autumn “chill” was still overly warm to her, but alas, given the volatility of social environment of the town, she did not have any desire to draw more attention to herself than necessary, and her bare, alabaster (albeit rather red, at present, in areas she had been unable to shield with clothing) skin would _definitely_ draw attention. As it was, she settled for shirt, trousers, and baldric without her vest or cloak. It would have to do. At least the clothes themselves had been washed while she slept (for a fee, of course, but one she found completely worthwhile), and smelled faintly of lavender rather than strongly of sweat and blood and dust, as they had before.

Her hair being completely loose was unacceptable, but hunger prevailed against the will to do much else; she simply braided the top half back and left both braid and the loose lower half to flow down over her shoulders.

And so, clean and relatively groomed, if somewhat shabby, Acantha descended to the common room of the inn, clenching her teeth against the sudden onslaught of noise and light and people that pervaded the space. If she could find a table in a corner somewhere, or at the edge of the room, she would be fine. If not, she’d retreat to her room with her food as soon as she had it.

A brief conversation with the proprietess saw a mug of small beer in her hand and the promise of stew to follow, along with a suggestion of an out-of-the-way table that sat empty until Acantha staked her claim to it with a silent sigh of relief, settling into a rickety chair with her back blessedly close to the wall. Time blurred until she had her bowl of stew, and then she was eating and it was the most lovely thing she had ever tasted, somehow, and then -

“Ahh, good evening,” a vaguely familiar, masculine voice greeted her, prompting a glance up to take in the angular, anxious countenance of the Imperial elf from the day before. He held two modestly-sized steins of ale, and upon receiving a glance from her, put one down on the table and slid it to her. “I don’t know that a beer is quite the proper recompense for sparing me a fight, but I assume it could at least be a start.”

“Could be,” she agreed with a slow nod and, with a moment’s hesitation, an inviting glance toward the empty chair across from her. The man took it, looking grateful (as best she could tell, anyway). “Seeming like you truly wanted to upset the townsfolk, it wasn’t --” She paused, closed her eyes for a moment and mentally worked to realign her speech with more typical Aedyran structure. “So wonder I - So I must wonder why you were saying such things as… whatever that last bit was about the farmer’s sister.”

“A, ahh…. mistranslation, I’m afraid. A simple misunderstanding,” he replied, smiling sheepishly to her.

Acantha snorted. “My third tongue, Aedyran is. Even I heard something more than a ‘simple misunderstanding.’”

He didn’t respond to this, instead raising dark eyebrows curiously. “If the first is Glamfell, you’re a long way from home.”

“It is, and I am,” she agreed evenly, then shrugged. “For what amount I would call the White that.” She lifted the tankard he’d brought her and tilted it toward him in slight salute before sipping. The stuff was a dark color that promised flavor, or at least bitterness, but it delivered very little of either.

“Not a great deal, then?”

“I miss the quiet, betimes.” She flicked a wry, pale-eyed glance demonstratively over the noisy taproom. “Less the snow, but certain I will ever grow used to the heat, I am not.”

The man looked amused. “Never go to Aedyr, then. It sometimes gets too cold for me, here.”

She let out a breath through her nose that approached a chuckle. “Three years I spent in Old Vailia, before this. Not so different. I prefer the weather here, if not the…” Acantha gestured, indicating not so much the taproom, but the town.

“...Ambiance?” he filled in dryly. “Can’t say I disagree, in that regard. Aloth Corfiser, by the way, at your service.”

The introduction was accompanied by a closed fist raised across his chest to the opposite shoulder. She mirrored the gesture, nodding to him. “Acantha, once of Clan Tirinvahl. You are… thinking to settle, then, Aloth Corfiser, or simply moving through this place?”

“I was thinking to settle.” His lips pursed in displeasure before momentarily disappearing against his lifted tankard. He wrinkled his nose as he swallowed. “Thayn Raedric’s generous offer aside, however, I find this place has very little to recommend it, the ale included. I’m only here until I can decide where I’m going next. What of yourself, though? There was no caravan yesterday, and I think I’d have noticed if you had been here earlier, if you’ll pardon my saying. Did you arrive alone?”

Acantha nodded, eyes cast down into her tankard, contemplating the faintly scummy froth that clung to the edges. The fingers of her free hand twitched upward toward a stray lock of hair, wanting to twist it but only tucking it back behind her ear.

“To take the land was also my intent. Now… no.” She shook her head, looking back up to her companion briefly, before averting her eyes again as she explained, voice heavy and flat. “For the same reason. Alone, I was not, until three… four days past, now. I traveled south with a trade caravan. Glanfathans attacked, took most of the caravan. A soul-storm took all but three of the rest of us. We fled it, into the ruins, and when we found a way out, another storm took them and left only me. I finished the journey on foot.”

“You… survived a bîaŵac?” Another glance up; Aloth was frowning, though it seemed the frown of a puzzle unsolved, rather than one of annoyance or impatience.

She smiled humorlessly. “Unless I am dead and still do not know it. Named me ‘ghost-elf,’ did your man the farmer, after all.”

“Hah! So he did, I suppose. That is… quite the curiosity, friend,” Aloth murmured bemusedly.

“Yes.” The word was almost sighed. “There is more. I think the second storm was…” Her slim, bone-pale fingers twisted at the air, and she suppressed a shudder at the memory. “...woven, by some sort of ritual, nearby. Sacrifices, a huge Engwithan device. An old, tall human in a hat like antlers, who walked away.”

A surprisingly strong wave of mixed fear and anger swept through Acantha as she recalled that man. (Of course she wasn’t exactly positively-disposed toward him, but this far outstripped even the automatic distaste and distrust she felt for one who would deal in the deaths of his followers.) It dissipated almost as quickly as it arose, but left her unsettled. She tried to drown the feeling in another swallow of watery ale. “I need to go to the tree.”

“I… beg your pardon?” Aloth asked, taken-aback.

Acantha gritted her teeth. May as well tell him; he was certainly the friendliest - and likely the most learned - person she’d met in this forsaken town thus far. “I… see things, since the second storm. Sometimes when I am awake. When I am asleep, always. Before I awoke today, I saw a woman from the tree. I think…” She swallowed hard, not especially wanting to give voice to the rest, and its implication - or, for that matter, what the dwarf woman had called her, which was quite explicit. “I think perhaps she still… lingers there.”

With that she shrugged, attempting flippancy. “Or perhaps my wits are simply addled by these days past. But I must know.”

Aloth was nodding slowly, apparently taking her quite seriously. She supposed she was grateful.

“That’s… sensible enough. And… after?” he asked.

“After, I buy supplies to replace what I lost at the caravan, and look for the sister of a guardswoman, one of those who fled the first storm with me. A friend, Calisca could have been, if she had lived.” And that was the extent of her plans at the moment, really. She managed a smirk. “And after that, I choose a road that leads out of town, and walk on it.”

“Even more sensible.” He smiled, a bit hesitantly. “As I intend to do the same thing, and there’s safety in numbers, perhaps we might travel together, for a time? ...I quite understand if you’d rather not wander about with someone you’ve just met, of course.”

Acantha _did_ want company, just met or no… as long as it wasn’t unpleasant or a severe hindrance to speed or safety. Aloth certainly didn’t strike her as the former, but the latter mattered just as much.

“‘Just met’ is not a problem. However…” Feeling awkward, she frowned, at herself rather than Aloth - though he likely didn’t know that, she realized, quickly smoothing the expression away and pressing on with her intended question before he took her trailing off as a ‘no.’ “No offense do I mean in asking, friend, but how accustomed to the road are you?”

Aloth brightened a bit, smile returning. “I’ve been traveling for the better part of two years - from your tale of getting here, I don’t think I’m quite as hardy as you are!” He chuckled self-deprecatingly and shrugged. “But I can pull my weight, I assure you. I’m a wizard, by training, and have had to put it to use in self-defense more than a few times, since leaving Aedyr, and while I’m not fond of rough living, I also have plenty of experience born of necessity in that.”

Good enough for her. She liked the man, and having a competent field mage at her side would be no small boon. If he was egregiously misrepresenting himself and the partnership went sour, she could always move on alone, anyway. She returned his smile, inclining her head. “Then together, we go.”

“Excellent!” His smile broadened and warmed with what seemed to Acantha like relief - and if that was the case, she understood it. Four years parted from what remained of her clan had yet to make her a lone stelgaer by nature, despite how much she’d become one in fact.

Songs could be sung alone, but listeners gave them meaning.

“ - to depart?” Acantha dragged her attention back to where it needed to be soon enough to catch the last words, which fortunately were enough to infer the earlier ones.

“At least one more night in a bed, I need,” she replied. _Exhausting dreams or no._ “I doubt I will stay awake much more than a few hours, now. I will… go to the tree, tonight. Tomorrow… midday, perhaps?” If the village’s apothecary didn’t have what she needed to make sun-salve, she should at the very least be able to buy a cloak with a very deep hood, somewhere. But acquiring at least one of those things was second in priority only to food, if they were to take to the road.

“Very well, then. I’ll replenish my own supplies first thing in the morning, and be prepared to put this town behind us when you are,” Aloth agreed easily, taking another pointedly pained swallow of ale.

Acantha sipped at her own, wary that even such weak brew might go to her head in her present state, and smirked at him. “Perfect. Now, I have another very important question.”

“...Oh?” he blinked, politely curious.

“...What is a ‘coxfither?’”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aloth's journal, part 1

_Early Autumn 8, 2823 AI_

It seems I will remain in the Dyrwood for the immediate future, and so I suppose I will begin to mark dates in the way that they do, for clarity’s sake in references.  (I cannot deny that the Iroccian calendar has a certain sensibility to it that the one in use by my countrymen notably lacks.)  

Gilded Vale, however, I am eager to put behind me, and will do so at earliest reasonable opportunity.  I had been surprised that the thayn’s offer of land had lasted so long… until I arrived, and then it became quite clear why few if any people have taken advantage of that largesse.  The town is mad, and the thayn, madder.  

I am biding my time and on the alert for a caravan or other reasonably-sized group to join, but if none presents itself soon, I may dare the road alone, even without the benefit of a horse.  

 

_Early Autumn 11, 2823 AI_

I have found my traveling party - a fortuitous encounter with a Glamfellen woman yesterday led to a conversation and partnership this evening.  It is only to be the two of us, but if her tale is true (and I saw no motivation for her to exaggerate), she survived a three day journey alone, on foot, and with minimal supplies after her caravan was attacked north of Gilded Vale.  No great surprise for a native of the Wending White, I suppose, as her people are a hardy one by necessity, but I found it - and her timely intercession in a tense situation outside the inn - impressive all the same.  

It seems she is, as of quite recently, a Watcher, and that… is more than a little unsettling, I admit, but I also believe that she is rather more unnerved by it than I am, and I can’t help but sympathize, if quietly.  

We leave tomorrow for a destination undecided, but it will nonetheless be a relief to be quit of this town.  

 

_Early Autumn 18, 2823 AI_

Traveling with Acantha has proven quite the adventure already, as my lapse in entries here can likely attest, but at least we are a party that can frankly laugh at most common dangers encountered on the road.  Two became three before we had left Gilded Vale, and three became four not so long after that.  

The farmer-soldier, Edér, is a congenial sort, and I daresay both Acantha and I have been grateful to have his shield in between us and the brigands, trolls, and occasional angry spirit we have managed to run into since first leaving the town.  The Magranite priest who calls himself only “Durance” (and Acantha, “Watcher” and me “Wizard.”  Not very creative, that one.), however, I do not like at all.  It seems he would have followed Acantha about with or without her consent, so she sees that he makes himself useful, but I’m still not sure his magic is worth the _durance_ of his company.  

Iselmyr has seen fit to make outburst at inopportune moments, as usual, and I believe Acantha suspects.  How could she not, I suppose, being a Watcher?  Yet I am less concerned than perhaps I ought to be - thus far in this small coalition of travelers, I am squarely on the lower half of the eccentricity spectrum, of which we run the gamut.  Durance… is what he is.  Acantha of course has a habit of pausing to watch spectacles of the soul that the rest of us cannot see, and her behavior the rest of the time is at once eminently reasonable and decidedly odd.  She is always polite, but at the same time has no sense of propriety to speak of.  I’m uncertain whether it’s a cultural difference (very well could be) or a peculiarity of hers, but it’s something I’m gaining comfort with, at any rate.  

I’m afraid I made a mistake in declining to explain Iselmyr’s Hylspeak outburst on the night we met - Acantha has taken to calling me “Coxfither,” as something of a nickname.  I admit I was briefly offended, at first, but it’s quite benign - affectionate, even, I suppose.  Not something I’m accustomed to, surely.  

We are about to break camp and move on, in search of some potion or other for a widowed mother-to-be in Gilded Vale.  I have my doubts that anything will ensure the woman’s child is not hollowborn, but we go, all the same.  

 

_Mid-autumn 1, 2823 AI_

Back in Gilded Vale.  I am truly starting to hate this town.  

To make matters more ignominious, Edér had to carry me into the inn as if I were a child or blushing bridegroom, not to mention the league of distance before that.  A mishap during a small skirmish saw me at the bottom of a ravine and something terribly unpleasant done to my ankle.  No broken bones, but I believe I would almost prefer that to the reality.  

The valerian tea I drank is demanding I sleep.  I pray that I do not feel quite so wretched in the morning.  We make for a place called Caed Nua as soon as I can reasonably travel.  Whatever we find there, it can’t be worse than this moldering mudhole of a village.  

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

“So, what’d you tell her?”  Edér gave her a benignly curious look over his mug of ale as Acantha dropped into a second wooden chair (worn smooth by years or decades of incidental polish with the coarse cloth of farmhands’ breeches) across from him.  

Her own mug sloshed a bit as she set it down, and she frowned at the froth that slid down the side onto the table as if it had caused her personal affront.  “To get out of the Dyrwood,” she replied flatly.  “Lie about the potion, I could not.  I have heard of no successful births here since the first soulless child.  No disease is that absolute.”  

“Think she’ll listen?”  

The Watcher gritted her teeth, fingers restlessly twisting a loose lock of her hair into a braid.  “No.  She names this place home.  Adventurous as you are, she is not.”  

Edér smirked into his ale, taking a sip and wiping froth out of his short moustache.  “I dunno that I’d be adventurous either, with a belly like that.”  

A rough chord from a harp sounded just on the edge of hearing above the taproom noise, which dampened slightly in anticipation of entertainment.  Acantha glanced toward the sound and saw a townsman holding the instrument, just as he began his song.

 

“ _Verdant hill and vale upon Engwith’s bones_

_Wild, the land and defiant, the folk_

_Who settled these shores while the craven fled_

_Back to a home long-tamed and city’s light_

_Joyful, our forbears as they laid down roots_

_And candles lit the night.”_

 

“I suppose.”  She replied with a shrug as she turned back toward her companion, still frowning, then took a long swallow of her ale that she tried and mostly failed not to taste.  “Among my people, a woman in her time would still be traveling, hunting.  For another twentyday, at the least.”  

“Your folk aren’t too keen on roots, are ya?” he asked with a bit of a chuckle.  “Or creature comforts, for that matter, sounds like.”  

Acantha snorted.  “Roots, no.  Comforts, though…  surprised, you would be, I think.  Comforts in the White are few, but Glamfellen know all of them.”  

“ _All_ of ‘em, huh?”  Edér grinned at her.  “Wild pale elf parties on the tundra, then?”  

“Not as you would name them, quite.”  She couldn’t help but smile back, a little, even as something in her chest clenched at the memories she’d accidentally opened the door to.  “But… we know _beauty_.  Light and sound and movement, all dancing together in the ice.”  

 

“ _But the world’s adra bones run dark and deep_

_And deeper still in this land we had found_

_The clansmen’s memories are fierce and long_

_And they have no care for the farmer’s plight_

_Stones were broken, and others still, stolen_

_And torches lit the night.”_

 

“Interesting definition of comfort.  ‘Round here, it’s more about good beer and a soft bed and someone to share it with.”  

She glanced up sharply for a moment, but he didn’t seem to be making fun of her.  Merely… sharing experiences.  She made herself relax.  “We have those things as well.  But…”  Acantha frowned, looking for a way to explain.  “If in Aedyran, a word exists for what I think of… I do not know it.  Comfort of the body, to my people, is only… absence of pain and deprivation.  Another sort exists, though.  Something we yearn for.  It is…”  She gestured vaguely, frowning.  “Beauty perfected in its time and place.  The correct moment.  A time where you sing one line of a song, and unseen, another person answers with the next.”

Edér was watching her soberly, thoughtfully.  “If there’s a word for it, I don’t know it either.  But that sounds an awful lot like what I remember of the Eothasian rites, ‘fore Raedric banned ‘em.  Always… seemed like there was something higher, holier about some of those moments, that I couldn’t ever _do_ , but I could understand ‘em when I watched.”

Acantha nodded.  “Then that is the best I can say.”  

There was silence - or _relative_ silence, as the taproom was quite busy around them, and the half-harp’s notes still pattered through the noise between verses - for several moments while they sipped at their ale.  Then Edér broke it once more, wryly.  “But I was askin’ about your people, or I meant to.  Sounds like you still hold onto the same values.  Why’d you leave?”  

Something in her expression must have changed without her consent, because he immediately looked contrite.  

“...I don’t mean any offense in asking.  If you’d rather not talk about that, it’s just fine with me.”  

 

“ _With peace new-tendered, and forests regrown_

_We mended our fences and licked our wounds_

_But new tensions rising across the sea_

_Made us allies against an Empire’s might_

_With our teeth full-bared and new-sharpened steel_

_Our First Fires lit the night.”_

 

She didn’t have anything _against_ speaking of it, she supposed.  There had just never been a reason to.  So she shook her head and shoulders as if shrugging off a light accumulation of snow.  “It is… offended, I am not.  A younger brother and sister, I had, twins, Koreval and Birithi.  They both died on a hunting expedition that went wrong, years past.  Other than our… Master Skald, our loresinger… I had no one, then.  Most northernfolk seem to think of clans as close-woven, family, and I suppose some of them are.  But mine…”  Slim white fingers spread in eloquent gesture to indicate their surroundings.  “I believe you know the dynamic, from what you say of this town after the Saint’s War.”  

He let out a surprised, rumbling chuckle, shaking his head.  “Everyone knows everyone else’s business, and has an opinion, but it’s a bit prickly if you don’t quite fit in for some reason?  Yeah, suppose I do, at that.  Gotta say, I’m glad you showed up when you did.  Been interesting so far, and trolls and bandits somehow don’t worry me quite as much as that tree, and Raedric’s soldiers.”  

Ah yes, the tree.  The configuration of bodies upon it had changed, since they’d been gone, and the corpse-reek that hung upon the breeze, grown stronger.  Even the stagnant, smoky air of the inn’s common room had been a relief to Acantha, coming in from the outside.  It nauseated her just to think of the smell.  

“The dangers of the road are more pleasant.  And smell better,” she agreed, swallowing back bile and chasing it with a rather large gulp of her ale.  “Speaking of such things, however.  How does Aloth fare?”  They had parted ways at the inn, Edér helping their injured companion, Durance making straight for the bar, and Acantha peeling off to return to Calisca’s sister.  

“Asleep by now, most likely, if he drank the tea I fetched for ’im,” he replied, beard bristling as his lips twisted into a smirk.  “Cranky.  Not that I blame him; suppose I would be too.”

 

“ _A city renamed, and a nation born_

_Together, Dyrwoodans, we proudly stand_

_Our songs are bold and our fields are fertile_

_Ahead, our eyes, the future a fair sight_

_Nevermore to bow and scrape to a crown_

_Our flames will banish the night.”_

 

The last verse of the ballad cut through the taproom’s din, and Edér’s face darkened in a way Acantha had not yet seen as it ended.  She tilted her head, a silent question conveyed across the space.  

His lips thinned, but then the darkness retreated, tucked back away wherever it was he kept things such as how he really felt about his town, now.  “Changed the last line.  It used to be ‘And morning will banish the night.’  First time I’ve heard it this way, although I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  Raedric’s been wiping every hint of Eothas outta everything the town does or says.”  He shook his head, then glanced to her, eyes wry.  “I thought I’d gotten used to it.  Guess I was wrong.”  

Acantha nodded gravely.  The original line seemed innocuous enough to her, but if Edér immediately associated the change with the erasure of the Eothasian faith, it must be distinctive enough.  

“The etiquette of tavern songs here, how is it?” she asked after a moment, fingers knitting together and unknitting, the only sign of her trepidation.  

Edér raised an eyebrow.  “No one’d take it badly if you wanted to get up and given ‘em a song, if that’s what you’re asking.  We don’t get too many with your training here in Gilded Vale.”  

She nodded once, simply, and rose to her feet before she could talk herself out of it.  She didn’t have a half-harp like the one the previous singer had played, nor lute or fiddle or any other accompaniment.  But while she enjoyed and knew her way about all of those things, her true craft was song alone, and it seemed fitting that that was what she would offer here.

Pasca gave her a look that was first curious, then excited, as she approached the tiny dais that functioned as a stage.  

“With your blessing, mistress?” Acantha asked politely.  

“Oh, please do!” the innkeep replied effusively.  “Can’t pay you anything other than what people might toss at’cher feet, but we’ve not had new blood with music in it in weeks.”  

“Of course,” Acantha agreed with a slight smile and a nod that echoed a bow in the woman’s direction.   

There was a moment where her legs wanted to hesitate before stepping up onto the dais, but she didn’t let them.  It always got easier once she started singing.  She had been born and raised to this, and it made small difference that she stood in a Dyrwoodan common room rather than in an echo-room carved out of the ice of her native White.  

When she finally spoke, her voice was clear and even, slicing through the smoky taproom air.  “My friends, I have enjoyed the music you make here, and would give you a song from my home in return.  The translation leaves something to desire, perhaps, in its loss of rhyme, but the tune and story do not care too much, I think.”  

Eyes had turned to her, some with bored indifference, and some with open curiosity.  She expected they saw even fewer Glamfellen upon this stage than they did other foreigners.  

Well and so.  If it made them listen more closely, it was worth it.  

Her voice, when she began, was low and resonant, pitched to carry through shrieking gusts of wind.  No song of her people’s sounded quite right otherwise.  

 

“ _Deep is the winter and deep is the snow_

_And strange, the sounds on the wind_

_Many a heart and many a mind_

_Have frozen and broken within._

 

_Two clans once warred, and a grievous blow_

_Was struck by the Beast’s ice-eyed pack_

_Two elders and two children stolen away_

_With many left dead beside._

_And so the Aurora’s children sent their best_

_To bring the taken ones home -_

_Seven hunters and warriors, bold to their purpose_

_And led by peerless Moreal.”_

 

She sang the repeats of the chorus in her native tongue, for while she had managed to preserve something like the original meter in her translation, to her ears it still lost much of its haunting beauty.  The ballad was the most tragic of the tales of the legendary hunter, Moreal, describing how she had begun to hear a voice in the wind that warned her of treachery by her companions, as they traveled toward their enemy’s encampment.  Driven half-mad with paranoia, she killed them all - including her younger sibling and a dear friend - one by one.  When she was the only one remaining of the war party, she found herself surrounded by wolves, and caught a glimpse of the great Beast, Rymrgand, hearing his laughter just before she died.

The taproom was quiet as Acantha sketched a swift bow and made her way back to her table, and her ale.  She avoided the eyes of all around her without making it obvious that she was trying to, not truly wanting to see whether her parable had had its intended impact or not.  

Edér gave her a wry look, shaking his head as she settled back into her chair, her back to the stage.  “Better hope none of Raedric’s guard is here to run and tell him about that.”  

She smirked faintly into her mug.  “Too obvious, do you think?”  

“Nah.  Just obvious enough.  The townsfolk are good people, for the most part.  Probably did some good to hear all that.  Just… let’s watch our backs a bit more closely ‘till we get back on the road again.”  His eyes flicked up toward something past her shoulder and crinkled into a smile.  “Looks like someone other than me enjoyed it, anyway.”  

A moment later, a serving woman appeared at her elbow and set down a pair of short cups on their table.  “Compliments of the house, miss.”  

“My thanks,” Acantha murmured, somewhat surprised.  She had heard hospitality for musicians was generous in the Reach, but in a town as currently downtrodden as Gilded Vale, she hadn’t expected anything.  Turning to catch Pasca’s eye, she lifted the drink in salute before tasting it - the drink was spicy and sweet, and far stronger than the ale.  

“Oh, she’s brought out the good stuff,” Edér noted with a grin.  “Gotta get you singing more often, dangerous or not.  I haven’t had mead since the summer, didn’t think there’d be any left by now.”

“Mead?” she asked curiously, sniffing at the stuff appreciatively before taking another sip.  Sweets weren’t something she had ever quite been used to - the closest one got in the White without paying exorbitant sums to a trade ship was dried fruit - but this was… very good.  

Edér chuckled.  “Honey wine.  We put spices in it, here, too.  Guess they don’t really have bees where you’re from, do they?”  

“No, indeed,” she agreed.  “In Old Vailia, I had honey once, but sugar was more common.”  

“Strange to think of.  Sugar’s only really for fancy-folk around here; rest of us make do with honey and maple.”  

That was a word she had not even heard.  “Maple…?”  

“Damn, lady, we’ve got to get you some of that, ‘fore we go.  Maple’s a kind of tree; you take the sap and boil it down.  Gets as sweet as honey after a while, and nothing else tastes quite like it.”

“Tomorrow I will look for it, when I buy supplies, then.”  She blinked owlishly at her suddenly-empty cup.  “Tonight… this has gone to my head, I think.  I had best find my room.”  

He grinned, still nursing his own cup of mead.  “Stuff’ll do that to you.  No getting drunk and dancin’ on tables for you, I guess?”  

Acantha merely snorted at that idea as she rose to leave, focusing rather more than usual on where she put her feet.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ballads are of my own composition.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our fledgling heroes explore Caed Nua.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for end of Act 1.
> 
> Oh, you thought this fic was dead? Well, I can't blame you; it's been a while. But there is at least reasonable hope that the most hellish period of my life thus far is in the process of ending, and I am all aboard the hype train for Deadfire and still very invested in this fic.

_Mid-autumn 7, 2823 AI_

We are quit of Gilded Vale again at last.  My ankle is none too pleased at walking an entire day, but it seems to be holding up.  As long as matters get no worse, I believe my declaration that I was ready to travel again was not overly hasty.  

We were approached not an hour out of town by a rather rough-looking man who identified himself as ‘Kolsc.’  Edér has since noted that he is a relation of Thayn Raedric’s, recently taken to the life of an outlaw in opposition of the thayn’s treatment of the town.  While we all quite agree with his sentiment in the matter (excepting perhaps Durance, who has little to say other than profanity and mystical-sounding foolery, and I cannot be expected to attempt to divine his true opinions), I must wonder what he truly believes our small party able to do about it.  Acantha and Edér share my skepticism. We aren’t assassins, and that is what the man seems to be in need of.

It is my turn to do the cooking, tonight, and Acantha has just appeared with what looks to be a small wild pig, so I must put my writing away.  

 

_Mid-autumn 8, 2823 AI_

We have camped for the night within sight of the gates of Caed Nua, in preparation for what promises to be a trying day tomorrow.  

We encountered a young aumaua scholar when we reached the gates who was apparently debating the wisdom of making a foray alone at the time.  Our party grows yet again; if this continues we may have a small army with us after a time. Kana Rua is a cheerful, agreeable sort, at least, as well as educated, and I cannot object to more fighting strength, especially if his assessment of the state of Caed Nua’s grounds is accurate (and a brief scouting foray seems to indicate that it is).  

He and Acantha are trading songs by the fire.  I do hope they don’t intend to continue doing so during the first watch.  

 

* * *

 

“Watch your left flank, Mister Coxfither!” Edér called cheerfully over his shoulder to Aloth, and Acantha had to force herself not to break her steady chant with a laugh despite the fact that they were half-surrounded by angry spirits.  She turned smoothly to send one of her few silver-plated arrows through the shade that had moved to attack her wizard friend.

Aloth, for his part, growled something in the strange Aedyre dialect he shifted to every so often (“Quit yer jabberin’ and mind yerself, lad!”) and sent a bolt of malignant darkness into the unnatural shadow of the spirit’s form.  The screech the thing made as its cloudy shape expanded and then dissipated as if it were merely smoke in the wind scraped through Acantha’s ears and into her mind like steel talons scrabbling against sheet metal, and any instinct toward humor from the moment before fled as she flinched and was barely able to dodge a strike from another of the things.  

Her chant did falter, then, the cessation of its rhythm almost as jarring as the sound that had caused it, for phrases woven with power did not appreciate such abrupt interruption.  

Sensing weakness, the shade struck again, but met with Aloth’s shimmering, magically-shielded form instead, allowing her the instant she needed to duck and roll well away.  There was an edge of panic in his voice at odds with the action when he called to her, “My wards are failing!” but she was already firing another arrow, focus recovered and her chant rising to twine with Kana’s once again.  

Her arrow struck the spirit a heartbeat after Edér swung his shield at it, and the thing shrank in upon itself as if it had had to expend part of its semi-corporeal substance to destroy the arrow.  Then a flash of orange-white light that made Acantha wince, and the final spirit disappeared with the fading sound of Durance’s shouted power word.

Acantha tied off the thread of her renewed chant with a final, power-dissipating invocation and panted to find her breath, an arrow still warily knocked to her bow.  It had been the second such ambush they had encountered in the grounds of the ancient, dilapidated fortress, and though Kana’s warning the night before had allowed their party to prepare enough to handle them, every moment felt balanced on a razor’s edge in that place.  

Edér’s huffed words echoed that sentiment.  “Gotta say, I don’t much like fighting things that hardly care about my steel.  Think they even make silver-plated swords?”

“Rarely,” Aloth answered wearily.  The air around him still seemed to crackle faintly, and there was a whiff of ozone in the air that Acantha assumed had come from his protective spell.  “Even setting aside the expense, the integrity of it wouldn’t last long enough to make it worthwhile on a sword if it was used for anything other than fighting spirits.  But there are enchantments that can accomplish something similar.”

“I don’t suppose…”

He let out a short, humorless laugh.  “No, or I _assure_ you, I would have offered well before this.”  

“How fare all of you?” Acantha asked, her breath finally caught.  “More of these... things... before we reach the keep, I expect.”

“My left shoulder is numb and quite cold where one of them managed to strike me,” Kana replied, as if it was more a matter of curiosity than anything else.  “It could be a problem if it spreads, but I can still fight - such as it is, seeing as my blade is as mundane as Edér’s.”

“The flame does not fear the shadow.”  Durance’s voice was dismissive. “I will burn every spirit in the grounds if I must.”  

“ _Delightful_ for you,” she heard Aloth mutter, and her lips quirked up faintly, but the priest ignored him.  He drew breath again as if to answer her question, but let it out with a relieved glance at Edér when the human spoke up.  

“I’ve got more in me, but I could use a rest.  Swinging at shadows is hungrier work than it probably should be.”

Acantha glanced at Aloth, who was to her eyes uninjured, and he just nodded.  “Very well.” She gestured toward the roofless ruin of an outbuilding nearby whose ancient walls were still present, but mostly low and gapped enough to offer good visibility.  “These creatures did not seem to pass through stone. More comfortable, I would feel, with a wall at my back for a time.”

“Won’t hear any complainin’ from me on that,” Edér murmured, and Acantha smiled briefly to herself as they made their wary way toward the building.  Aloth seemed to have already developed a sixth sense for tactical purposes, always finding the most covered place between herself and Edér that was possible.

But her amusement was slight, as they were indeed all weary and the caution seemed merited.  And then that amusement evaporated entirely when she crossed the threshold of the ruined building, as a vision consumed her.  

 _“Caught stealing, and then you incapacitated and escaped three of my warriors.  What_ am _I to do with you?” she muses, looking up casually from the map table.  Acantha (that isn’t his name, not here, but he cannot recall what it should be instead) is easily four handspan taller, but this woman holds herself like a queen and shows no concern for the fact that she is standing in a small room with the miscreant in question and only two warriors to ward her._

_Red-gold hair falls in waves to her waist, held back with a delicate wire band whose shape mimics a flowering vine.  Her eyes are dusk-violet and they shine with intelligence and edged humor. She is the most beautiful creature Acantha has ever seen._

_“Give me a job?” he tries brazenly.  “Since you’re asking for suggestions.”  He’d rather expected just to be maimed or killed; the fact that he’s standing here without so much as rope on his wrists says that at least there are possibilities in other directions.  Gentryfolk don’t do their own executions._

_Her laughter is a bright peal of bells in his ears.  “An interesting proposition. Why should I consider it?”_

_“Besides the fact that I obviously know my way around the business end of a blade?” he replies easily, thrusting fear thoroughly into the background as he watches her.  His position is precarious, but the fact that he isn’t dead yet continues to speak well of his chances of coming out of this the better for the experience. He decides to give her a truth he hasn’t shared with anyone in years… and he wonders whether she will recognize the sincerity and import of it.  “I served a pair of lords from when I came of age till six winters past, and I did it well. For a long time, I wished I had died when they did, but the errand they’d had me on when everything fell to pieces kept me alive while their enemies destroyed them.”_

_She is listening intently, curiously.  She is not toying with him, and this is a welcome if surprising revelation.  He continues._

_“I’ve no noble blood and no sweeping ambitions.  But I’ve been looking for something or someone to care about like that ever since.”_

_Perhaps she’s awful.  Perhaps he’ll come to despise her.  But he doesn’t have a great many options at the moment, and just perhaps, instead, she is worthy of the loyalty he hasn’t known what to do with since his masters were destroyed._

_If she isn’t, he can get away.  He trusts his own skills that much._

_She considers him for a moment that feels like an eternity, then nods once and says, “Then speak your name and enter my service, and I will anticipate receiving the loyalty you once gave them.”_

“...Acantha?  Say something, please; there are still a great many angry spirits about, and we all must be on our guard.”  

The voice seemed to be addressed to him, but it didn’t make sense, so he simply bowed and replied, “I am Torin son of Rint, and I pledge myself, body and blades, to your service, until your word or death releases me.”  

“What language is that?  Glamfell?”

“I don’t think so - I’m no expert, mind you, but I’m quite sure the rhythm is all wrong for it to be that.”  

“...Acantha?”  

She blinked as she looked around, taking in the faces of her companions, feeling at once confused and bereft.  “...yes?” she husked in reply, finally, after swallowing several times.

Edér clasped a big hand on her shoulder, the touch feeling like it hauled her bodily back into the world from wherever it was she had gone.  She gave him a grateful look.

“You left us for a good bit there.  Must’ve been real interesting,” he said as he released her.  

She hadn’t spoken of any of her visions since that first chat with the dead animancer, but none of them had been quite so long or so coherent as the one that had just taken her.  “I believe… been here before, have I. There was a woman, whom I….”

 _Loved_ , whispered some secret part of her, a part that ached with a fierceness that nearly took Acantha’s breath away.

“...Served.”  That was true, too, at least.

“She pretty?” Edér asked gamely with a wry grin.  

Acantha had no idea what the purpose of that question was, but she answered it, all the same.  “Beyond words.”

“Well, that’s good.  If you gotta look at dead people all the time, least the view should be nice, I reckon.”  

“Fye,” Aloth piped up, eyes sweeping over everyone in the party other than Durance, “better to get a load of the living!”

Edér’s grin was back and wider than ever as he winked at Aloth, who had turned a bright shade of scarlet almost as soon as the words had left his mouth.  “Aww, that’s sweet of you, Aloth. You’re right pretty yourself. Especially when you blush like that.”

“Like a boy who’s just looked up his first skirt,” Durance muttered around a mouthful of dried meat.  

“I’m older than you are, you over-baked arse,” Aloth shot back, even redder.  

“And yet, still the boy.”  

Fortunately for Durance’s arse and Acantha’s patience, another knot of angry spirits chose that moment to descend upon their resting spot, sparing them one altercation in favor of another, probably less deadly one.

 

…

 

‘Torin, son of Rint’ caught up to her again not two hours after the first vision, and Acantha wasn’t sure whether the brevity of the second manifestation was more blessing or curse.  It didn’t significantly interrupt the party, which was good, but…

_The look in Uli’s eyes as she glances back at him, the curve of her lips… volumes of communication in just those subtle details of appearance, there and gone in an instant.  It is a knowing look, and breathtaking in its intimacy._

Wondering about one’s past incarnation’s personal life was not the most advisable passtime in circumstances such as their present one, but the questions distracted her, all the same.  He didn’t feel like the self who had stirred that first time at the ruins of Cilant Lîs, somehow, though she wasn’t sure how she knew that… and there was something satisfied, almost _whole_ about the sense of him in that second brief flash that tantalized her.  She found herself wanting to know more not because it felt immediately pressing to her current security, but because it simply felt good.  

But they were actively engaged in skirmishes with angry spirits more of the hours of that afternoon than not, which made woolgathering more than a little hazardous.  

And then they made it to the main keep, and visions of something much darker - someone else’s horrors, not her own - displaced thoughts of her past for a time, in favor of that of Maerwald’s.  

 

* * *

 

_Travelogue of Kana Rua, ninth day of middleautumn, 2823 AI_

I have had the most extraordinary luck since arriving at Caed Nua!  Not all of it good, precisely, though in the balance I would say it is.  

I spent longer than I likely should have dithering over what to do about the spirits haunting the place, but that proved fortuitous, as I encountered a party of mostly-friendly adventurers, led by none other but a Watcher.  She is trained in a Chanter’s tradition not unlike our own in Rauatai, which has made for fascinating campfire conversation, to put it mildly. It is strange to think of how similar some things are across two entirely different cultures on entirely different sides of the world.  

As I said, extraordinary luck!  

Our other companions are a warrior, a wizard, and a Magranite priest - the first of those apparently had his own intended business with the late Watcher, Maerwald, but much like in my case, will have to seek his answers elsewhere.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Maerwald was, unfortunately, quite mad when we found him, seemingly drowning in the guilt of bloody memories from past lives.  Whether it was simply terrible luck or some malice on the part of the gods, one of his past selves fathered the other on a woman of the enemy by force, and so it was that he had two past personalities who had been on opposite sides in the early conflict between the Aedyran colonists and the Glanfathan natives in the Dyrwood.  These two personalities rotated with Maerwald himself in speaking to us, before the most suspicious of the lot decided he needed to kill us. Thankfully, while he was indeed a wizard of no small skill, he was still no match for our combined efforts, despite the two hours we had spent fighting through a nest of giant spiders to get down to the level where he was holed up prior to finding him.  

The Watcher was _not_ happy about the spiders.  I don’t speak more than a few words of her native tongue, but I’m quite sure I caught some kind of acid invective about “northern monstrosities” at one point and had to try very hard not to laugh.  I don’t think she would have appreciated it very much. (And now, I am fairly certain I also know how to swear in Glamfell.)

She seemed… unsettled… by Maerwald’s condition, for which I cannot say I blame her!  She has only come into her ability recently, it seems, and to have such a colorful example of how poorly that can go for a person must be difficult.  But then, there are tales enough of other Watchers to say that going mad, while assuredly a possibility, is not a certainty, and I think she appreciates that fact academically, at the least.  

She had three separate episodes as we cleared out the grounds of Caed Nua, which I must (somewhat callously, I fear) admit to being fascinated to witness.  These visions were apparently all attached to a particular past personality, and near the end of each case saw her lapsing into speaking aloud, uttering words in a tongue no one else in the group even recognized, let alone could understand.  She has mentioned the prominent presence of a woman that she thinks her past self served, and there seems to be quite a lot of nuance to that relationship, but we have only just met, and it seems rather rude to pry simply to satisfy my own curiosity when she is inclined toward reticence.  But I find myself hoping we might become friends for many reasons, that curiosity among them.

It seems likely that we will have time for that, at any rate!  The Watcher has now assumed dominion over Caed Nua, and has pledged to delve the labyrinth beneath it with me in search of the _Tanvii ora Toha_ , among other things.  And as _that_ particular quest promises to require substantial resources if the mere first level of these “endless paths” is any indication of what awaits deeper below, I have joined the party in their endeavors for the immediately foreseeable future.  Both the Watcher and I are plagued, it seems, by the Leaden Key, which I find quite interesting, and we will be pursuing that nuisance (for me) and pressing difficulty (for her) as soon as we have recovered from our efforts today.

I certainly won’t complain about an impending trip to the archives in Defiance Bay!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you tell I don't like directly rehashing scenes that happen in the game? 'Cause I really don't. 
> 
> As I anticipate that Acantha's visions might get confusing and explaining just a little won't spoil anything, this fic will be exploring substantially more past lives of hers than just the one that was Awoken at the start of the game. Fortunately for her, other than that particular one, her own past lives are a good bit more harmonious than poor Maerwald's. 
> 
> Speaking of Acantha's past lives, thanks to the PoE minibang that finished recently, this fic is now part of a series! "I Recall" is a story about Nephele ix Iera (Acantha) and Iovara. It's got issues that I tentatively intend to address in the future with an Iovara-PoV rewrite, but I hope you'll find it an interesting read, if you do so, all the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Firelight_and_Rain, kalenel, and FrayedOne for encouragement, and Firelight_and_Rain for the beta readthrough!


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